


Happiness is a Warm Puppy

by TurtleTotem



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Animal Transformation, Charles in a Wheelchair, M/M, Past Charles/Erik
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 05:20:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7301071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles's dog, Wolverine, is the best thing in his life. He's helpful, considerate, cuddly, unconditionally loving -- really, he'd make a great boyfriend.</p><p>And now Wolverine has a chance to prove it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [XavierineFest2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/XavierineFest2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  A mutant turns Charles' best friend, his dog Wolverine into a human man, a very, very attractive, human man.

When Charles first decided to get a dog, he'd envisioned something cute and fluffy that would come running to greet him when he got home from class, tail wagging and jaw dropped in a doggy smile.

His actual dog, Wolverine, fit none of those particulars. He was a squat, stocky, bowlegged creature whom Charles had never seen smile and whose tail might have wagged more if it hadn't been broken twice and healed up wrong. But he did come running when he heard Charles coming through the door, and the sight of him always brought a smile to Charles's face.

"Is this my good boy? Look what a good boy you are! Look at my good Wolvie!" Charles made kissy noises as Wolverine snuffled his trouser legs and the wheels of his chair, always eager to see what Charles had been up to while he was away. Not that it had been anything terribly exciting; class, class and more class. "You want to give me a hug, darling?"

Wolverine's pointed ears pricked up, and he hopped—all forty pounds of him—into Charles's lap and slumped against his chest, letting Charles wrap his arms around him and bury his face in his fur.

"Ugggghhh! Keep your pet monster out of my room, Charles!" Charles's roommate, Hank, burst into view with a magnifying glass in one hand and an alarmingly chewed-up syringe in the other. "Oh, and you're kissing it again—do you know how unsanitary that is? Quite aside from letting those teeth get so near your face."

"Aww, Wolvie would never hurt me," Charles cooed, rubbing their foreheads together. "Or anyone else, for that matter. You just don't know how to approach him."

"I avoid approaching him at all, since I like all my appendages exactly where they are. Admit it, Charles, that dog hates the world and everyone in it, except you."

"Because he knows I love him, yes I dooo." Soaking up the attention, Wolverine wormed around onto his back into Charles's lap, settling into Charles's arms like a baby. It probably would have hurt if Charles could, you know, feel his legs. "Hank, you and Wolverine are going to be great friends one of these days, you just don't know it yet."

Hank grunted. "Let me know when that day comes, I'd hate to miss it." He wandered back into his bedroom.

"He's just jealous of your good looks," Charles told the dog as he wheeled toward his own bedroom to put away his books. Wolverine's tail thumped slightly against Charles's lap as he licked his cheek.

Wolverine really did look much better now than he had when Charles first brought him home. At the shelter, he'd been skinny and matted, his flat toothy face usually stuck in a snarling position. He hadn't let any of the shelter staff get close to him, and they had all tried to direct Charles's attention to the prettier, sweeter-tempered dogs available, but Charles had… it was hard to explain. He'd felt such a connection to this dog. Wolverine was scared, and alone, and _needed_ him. He'd spent the better part of an hour sitting cross-legged in the front end of the long, narrow kennel, offering treats and talking in a ceaseless soothing patter. He'd thought he would burst into tears when the dog finally approached, took the treat, and collapsed in his lap with a sigh of relief.

Wolverine had been found wandering the side of the highway, said the shelter staff, some of whom also looked a little teary by then. Clearly he'd had an owner at some point—he had a collar and tag, thus the name—but it was hard to believe when he was so wild, as if he had no memory of being among people before. His scars indicated he might have been in a fighting ring. In any case no one had come to claim him, and they'd been on the verge of ruling him unadoptable—which was a story with only one ending.

So Charles had saved Wolvie's life, and Wolvie had more or less saved Charles's sanity—becoming his one source of comfort after the accident.

Charles shook his head, dropping his bookbag and opening a pack of Girl Scout cookies— "no, not for you, love, they're chocolate." It didn't do to think too much about the accident, or the weeks after. He barely remembered the hospital, anyway, but the first few weeks at home, when it was all he could do to physically get through the day, much less wrap his mind around the fact that this wheelchair thing was permanent and so was Erik's departure from his life—

His fingers fumbled the sleeve of cookies, trying to get it back into the box, and both items fell to the floor, the cookies rolling far out of Charles's reach. He swore under his breath.

With a purposeful whuffling noise, Wolverine rolled over and hopped down from his lap. He struggled a bit to get the cardboard box properly gripped in his teeth, but managed it and lifted it up to Charles's lap. Without waiting for thanks, he then trotted across the room to the sleeve of cookies, delicately picked it up as well, and returned that to Charles's lap with not even a terrible amount of dog-spit on it.

"Good boy! Thank you so much!" Charles scratched Wolverine's ears, pleased but not surprised—Wolverine had started doing that sort of thing as soon as Charles came home from the hospital. He didn't really count as a service dog, probably, but Charles had taken advantage of Wolvie's sensitivity and eagerness to help with a little training here and there, with the result that the dog was now a dependable source of help with dropped items, doors and light switches, could fetch several items by name, and was even a fair hand at keeping a path clear for the wheelchair if Charles pointed out what ought to be moved.

"I don't know what I'd do without you, to be honest," Charles murmured, continuing to pet Wolverine's head. "Sometimes I think no one's ever loved me like you do."

Wolverine wagged his tail, slow and stiff. He leaned into Charles's hands, closing his eyes in canine bliss, and whined as if in agreement.


	2. Chapter 2

When Charles's alarm went off the next morning, he groaned with more than the usual amount of irritation. He'd been having the most lovely dream, about being cuddled by a large muscular man…

He was still being cuddled by a large muscular man.

Pure shock kept Charles's first instinctive scream bottled in his throat. Possibilities flickered through his mind—Hank had somehow gone to the wrong bed. Raven was having a bit of fun at his expense. Erik had come back.

Well, none of those were remotely plausible, really.

He extended a tendril of telepathy toward the warm body that lay heavy against his back. It certainly was not Erik—it wasn't anyone whose mind he recognized. He was, at least, deeply asleep, and thus harmless for the moment.

Charles eased himself out of the arms of the mystery cuddler—who only snuffled and burrowed into the warm spot he left behind—and gave Hank an urgent mental poke. Maybe he'd know something about this situation. In the meantime, he transferred to his chair as quietly as he could, and looked around for Wolverine.

It was quite strange, wasn't it, that Wolverine hadn't attacked or even barked at this intruder? A deep unease quickened Charles's breath.

"Wolvie," he called quietly. "Wolvie, where are you? Where's my boy?"

There was no answer.

_Hank, is Wolverine in there with you?_

_What? Of course not, I still have delicate experiments he_ hasn't _eaten, no way did I let him in my room. What's going on?_

_Just get here in, please._

Instinctively Charles tried to search the apartment with his mind—but that was pointless, he couldn't read animals' minds, usually couldn't even sense them. That was part of what made Wolverine's presence relaxing, in a peculiar way. That left him with old-fashioned methods; Charles called again, a little louder. "Wolverine!"

The man in the bed woke with a start, and sat up, revealing his impressive and entirely naked body. "What?"

Hank rounded the corner into the bedroom, sleepily adjusting his glasses, and jumped half out of his skin at the sight of the naked man in the bed. "Ahh! Um, Charles—who's this?"

Charles's telepathic interrogation was quick but thorough—he figured rights of privacy were largely surrendered when you broke into a stranger's apartment and crawled into their bed. "I have no idea who this is," Charles said faintly, when he was done. "And more alarmingly, neither does he."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Humans Are So Dramatic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8103844) by [cheezybananaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheezybananaz/pseuds/cheezybananaz)




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